Actual gender critical left

I think unfortunately Victoria Smith may be a popular writer, but like many writers who claim to write about feminism only re-gurgitates what other writers say eg referencing Laurie Penny is a dead give away.

The back lash against Women's Liberation was about a cultural backlash ie it had all gone too far, which wasn't said about other Liberation movement eg PoC and L&G.

And the underlying sexism of the patriarchy let many MRAs think they were right not to have accepted any part of women's liberation.

And there is no doubt they promoted 3rd Wave feminism (actually a product of queer politics) as being the acceptable face of feminism. ie the partriarchy was only too happy to have 70s feminists written off as being old and out of touch and embrace the sexually liberated, sex work positive, men can become women (ie all men's rights issues) as the new feminism.

ie the growth of trans culture only happened because it suits MRAs. What better way to control women than have male women tell women who really is a woman and then set the agenda. ie it is a continuation of the backlash against Women's Liberation.

The specifics of AGCL is far more to do with a time when Marxist feminist would feel it their duty to tell Women's Liberationists they shouldn't, couldn't have a movement that put women front and centre. This was not proper liberation as it did not (according to their methods) challenge the more important oppressions of race and class. ie women should only talk about their own rights within the context of race and class. Not to do so showed you are nothing more than a superficial white middle class dilettante.

was that the most recent Filia? Curious to see if it all falls apart due to standard leftist infighting…

Great article

I read this article by Victoria Smith and it reminded me of this thread

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-backlash-against-a-feminism-that-never-was/

And this is relevant because of the WPUK/ AGCL overlap.

I think it's been apparent since the Cardiff FILIA, with the weird anti KJK workshop, that WPUK were taking over FILIA.

It's a hell of a business model.

Its more like an act of revenge.

We infiltrate because you are popular and we cant make people listen to us.

But when we speak through you people stop listening again.

So once you have been shut down we will have to move onto the next popular one.

Because we will never accept that we shouldn't be listened to, so if no one will voluntarily listen to us, we will have to force them to hear us spread our message by pretending to be something else.

It's a hell of a business model. Join a group, take it over, the group dies as everyone else leaves, move onto the next group. Maybe pick up one or two new recruits along the way.

There are some Trotskyite groups that behave exactly like this.

I think I would almost have preferred some sort of public merger statement or something!

Its strange though that women who are from a more left, party activism, have so readily taken up with what is (IMO) a politics lights, feminism as a consumer product venture.

Completely at odds with the fundamental premise of Women's Liberation ie a loose network of small autonomous groups who on occassion may meet up or work together.

Luckily there are now groups who are echoing that form of action eg WRN.

I saw recently that FILIA were starting a group for women in unions and the leader was WPUK co-founder, and supporter of Dr Hayton, Kiri Tunks.

Sex and Gender in Trump’s America
https://www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2025/2/6/sex-and-gender-in-trumps-america

In some of the earlier posts on this thread there were comments about how AGCL infiltrates other groups - and in fact the last article but one by WPUK before they closed down (because its followers weren't left enough!) was by someone from AGCL and was not well received for its hectoring tone.

And somewhere in this thread I joked about how AGCL was also now embedded in FiLia and would they end up closing that..

Here is FiLia's latest blog, which may in itself be worthy, but is sad to see it references for its position are nearly all AGCL.

Almost as though the many other women who are writing well thought out positions on SBR and Trump, dont exist.

Same here. I’m concerned with women’s and children’s rights, not prancing around saying “Oooh look how woke I am” while children suffer medical experimentation and women’s single-sex rights get swept into the bin.

I agree and have taken this link from another thread in case anyone missed it:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10894160.2024.2356496

The fact that we come with a wide range of political opinions is making it very hard for the TRAs to target us. It is a strength, not a weakness💪

There has been a few politically partisan posts on here, which is not helpful to the single issue cause of the rights of women (as against genderism)

women make up fifty percent of the population so it is of no surprise that there is a variety of political opinions, based on socio economic and tribal allegiances.

I have my own views and allegiances i am not politically neutral.

But i firmly believe we need to set aside what might be deemed left or right values, and an analysis on who is culpable for past errors or omissions.

We are here because we all agree we need to stand together against the pernicious attacks on women’s rights, and the objectification, prostitution, and capitalisation of women's bodies.

And we must in unity reject women who criticise other women involved in this goal wherever they politically reside.

I am not mad on everything KJK says, not mad about some of her supporters. But she has stood out extreme and loud and gathered ordinary women to give a voice.

JKR has the protection of her wealth and is much milder and has used her wealth and power for our good but rather belatedly

Kemi Badenoch, wiped the floor with the nitwits on the women and equalities select committee but who has no concept or connection with poor or marginalised women (not that i have noticed anyway).

Rosie Duffield only to give up when labour came to power.

Then there are the more ordinary, unknowns who have become known (by us anyway) through a variety of professions, or ordinary jobs who have led legal challenges and at great personal cost.

The women who fight in the real world who have now collectivised and organised in the courts of justice and in setting up campaign groups. It is clear they are networked and are our front line

And some of us may be part of that in the real world. And some of us are just keyboard warriors. Nothing wrong with that.

So i think i am saying this cause has gained momentum very rapidly, and we need to stop pointing our guns at each other and turn them on the real enemy which is

Men proliferating in disregard or hate beliefs against women and women’s rights.

Seriously did they learn nothing from Harry Potter

I think really all this reflects is that young people, like a lot of older people, dont follow politics in detail and / or are alienated by my side right or wrong posturing.

So I really only posted to say it is maybe too easy to get caught up in scoring points with loud mouths, rather than having a conversation on what might be mutual points of agreement.

Of course this isn't helped by the fact that the media loves to report loud mouths rather than the more mundane and difficult process of working out what is probably the long slow decline of the UK which essentially lived of the wealth of the empire up until WWII and never worked out what to do after that.

Unique research by the Children’s Commissioner’s Office found that young people who took part in last summer’s riots were not primarily driven by social media misinformation or racism but by curiosity of the events, deep distrust of the police or the lack of opportunities in their community.

... children’s motivation for taking part, challenging the prevailing narrative that young people’s involvement was orchestrated by deliberate misinformation spread through social media linked to racist and right-wing influencers.

While these factors played a potential role, they did not appear to drive children’s actions.

Instead, many children’s involvement in the riots was spontaneous, not thought out and opportunistic. The report found that they were not primarily driven by far-right, anti-immigration or racist views. Children spoke about their curiosity of these events and their animosity towards the police.

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/news/press-notice-deep-distrust-of-the-police-and-lack-of-opportunity-as-drivers-in-childrens-motivation-to-take-part-in-last-summers-riots/

Another aspect (IMO) is that so much of life as reflected through the media is about "events" and wanting to be part of them (and get on tv). eg all those people who turned up a the river bank where that poor woman disappeared, or happy to play the loyal subjects at Royal events, or have the opportunity to break the rules because adults are doing it.

I suspect many think I have gone off topic, but just trying to say if the commone issue that brings us on to FWR is in fact women's rights, should we be distracted or get caught up on whether it is left or right wing.

Discussing how to appeal, influence politcal groupings is different from saying if you believe this or that then it means you are right wing.

Although as suggested up thread (or maybe it was another thread) I think having Trump published EO that appear to support women's sex based rights will mean many will turn against them. Not because they are politcally aligned but they think he is a tiny bit demented and so him saying it makes it a demented thing to say or believe.

I'm conservative, a lesbian, a staunch feminist. I've been mostly a Republican, one time Libertarian, recently an Independent, now Republican again and I was dead keen to vote for RFK Jr.
My ideas evolve, I'm not in thrall to an ideaology and my moral virtue is based on my actions; not which party I vote for.
Trump, RFKJr, Tulsi Gabbard were all Democrats at one time. So I find it weird that Dems and the left are going on about the Far Right!

Seriously did they learn nothing from Harry Potter, I bet if they did the study again and asked if they wanted 'He who should not be named' in charge they'd all change their tune. 😂

Half of Gen Z – those aged between 13 and 27 – want Britain to be ruled by a dictator. This is just one of the “deeply worrying” conclusions from a study that has revealed that our young people have startlingly different attitudes to what most people assumed they had.

... a third thought Britain would be better “if the army was in charge”, while almost half agreed that “the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution”.

“the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gen-z-democracy-dictator-leader-politics-britain-b2686960.html

and https://archive.is/xLhWN

Refering back to the report about young people, I think the other part of this is the high level of (some, all?) young people believe in having an identity and only interacting with others live you.

It isn't about some over arching political belief or objective. It is about a subjective response and basing decisions on what feels best, affirms who they think they are.

So this is a new tribalism.

I think AP's points sound reasonable, I also think the decline in the industries that the masses traditionally worked in helped render the working class invisible, and robbed them of a political voice. So tired of being ignored they're (we) are turning to the populists because they are at least listening. Although I'm not convinced they're anymore interested in the concerns the working classes have, than the main stream political parties do.

I think even main stream media know and write about how the assumptions about traditional right and left alliances no longer exist.

So we are beyond that point. ie Labour won on a vote smaller than Corbyn's, who didn't win.

Is that democratic representation?

Just as most people say what was assumed to be the "world order" in fact doesn't work eg UN etc., more and more young people aren't interested in democracy or trust it.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/youthanddemocracy

Part of Trump's appeal seems to be that he is saying he doesn't need to bother with all these processes. He is reverting to the Victorian or earlier model of if you are in power, whether through money or votes, you are in charge.

Although none of this is relevant to why women who proclaim so loudly they are feminist, seem to think that means attacking other women. Or maybe that too is a sign of the fact we actually feel powerless, so other women are easier to campaign against.

There's a guy called Adam Przeworski who was writing about this in the 1980s. I think me and Matt Goodwin are the only people who've read his book.

His basic thesis was that Left parties have always been a coalition between the organised working class and radical PMC types. But as radical PMC types increase in numbers and social weight, they colonise the Left parties to the point where the working class finds them uninhabitable.

I think we can say by now that Labour is an expression of the class interests of the PMC.

It also explains the rise of the populist right. Lots of conservative parties have acquired a working class electorate that they don't know quite what to do with.

See also, I suppose, the AGCL style of doing politics. KJK, even if she never said anything right wing, would still be right coded to them, because she's an instinctive populist trying to rile up ordinary women without credentials.

For me the point is not whether you call yourself left or right as quite honestly (well in the UK) most people aren't either.

The issue for me is that far too many women's groups now seem to think being a feminist is just about telling another group of women who say they are feminists they are wrong.

ie compare AGCL seem to exist for this reason, whereas Labour Women's Declaration (from what I have seen) are focused on trying to get a particular section (political party) to acknowledge women's rights.

Think of all the energy, time and words that what sometimes seems like the majority of women who say they are feminist has gone into being "critical".

Whereas if every are of our life there were groups of women working as Labour Women's Declaration does, how many institutions would be being challenged. And challenge from within. Although this way of working can be harder than sitting at your keyboard going tut, tut, ad ininitum. And of course serves men as it has always done, getting women fight each other rather than men.

This way of working if far closer to the grass roots basis of working of Women's Liberation. For instance if every town / city had a group of women monitoring local councils decisions how many funding cuts may have been stopped. (I am saying this as many women's DV projects are having their funding cut just on the basis they are too expensive.)

So whilst is an historical way it might be interesting as to who did what when, what we need to deal with in the here and know.

We cant let (romanticised) loyalties to parties be the block to working out how to make an impact in the here and now.

I read an interesting analysis the other day that predicts social class is now again becoming more of an indicator of political consciousness.......but that the social class that previously supported the Left and saw it as the home of their interests, increasingly no longer does.

The values of large sections of the previous base are no longer reflected in the culture or preoccupations of the Left parties.The Left has increasingly become about the politics of race and 'gender', and about concepts such as 'open borders', and 'International Socialism' ( Jeremy Corbyn, for example) thinking around colonisers and colonised and so on. In which the Left can seem to despise its own society.

Haven't all of those things been established now, though?

The NHS is now struggling, even in a state of collapse...but that isn't just down to lack of spending on it. It is more to do with a fundmental structural issue in that it is now expected to do far, far more than it ever was on its conception; and the demands, and the and costs ( new drugs, new machines etc) keep escalating.

I agree about civic maintenance and housing though,.......as a country we no longer seem to have any pride in maintaining the built environment, and the quality of aesthetic appreciation, workmanship and skill is just not there any more. And, of course, housing costs are just too much. Society cannot be functional if people are struggling to put a decent/acceptable roof over their head.

The problem with Labour rights/legislations are that they can too far and start to strangle business. The Left tends to view business, generally, in a negative way - as a public service provider ( to which it attaches a public sector mind set) rather than as a wealth and employment generator. Where I live the Labour council sees private business almost entirely in pejorative terms. Many councillors don't seem to believe that companies should make profits.

The Labour government has just passed a new law meaning that all employees are entitled, from day one, to sick pay. That is unrealistic. Surely employees should have to serve time and show they are up to a role and that they are reliable before they are entitled to such compensations? And so on.

Too much regulation and burden is a disincentive to entrepreneurship - but without entrepreneurship and people willing to put in the time and the personal cost/risk in starting or developing a business the economy cannot develop and there are fewer jobs. Equaliity and regulation demands can simply multiply themselves.

Isn't that part of the issue.....that for the Left 'progress' towards 'equality' is a never ending journey towards an ideal, utopian goal - which probably doesn't exist, and never will.....because people are not all equal, there will always be differences. Outcomes can only be the same if the state takes total control of everything and imposes upon people.